Blackout (4 page)

“What was that about?” I swivel around and gawk. From a quick glimpse, he’s cute in his Ray Bans and with his black hair curling on his forehead, and more importantly, he isn’t chasing us down.

She laughs. It’s light and airy. “My mom’s going through her second childhood. He’s the latest cradle boy. I might as well get something out of it. The creep had the gall to ask me out. Like I’d take Mom’s leftovers. Disgusting.”

Her mom’s been married a few times. I lost count after the third one. Her first husband, Kami’s daddy, died from a heart attack and left them a fortune, but Mrs. Whalen dabbles in real estate and made her own.

I laugh with Kami, choking on my own spit.

“It’s not funny,” she says.

I laugh harder, and she joins me.

“Dillon asked the cop if he was going to be our next daddy.” As she pulls into her driveway, which is right next door to mine, she lets out a raucous laugh and slaps the steering wheel. “You had to be there.”

“What did the cop say?”

“He turned several shades of a turnip.” She glances behind me. “Where’s your luggage?”

“Most of it was shipped home, but my carryon is in the Range Rover at the bottom of the swamp.”

I get out of the Benz and talk over the convertible. “I need to check on Lulu, and if I have clothes, I’ll meet you out back in a few.” The beach is just over the dunes behind our houses.

“Sounds good.” Kami rests her chin and her arms on the Benz’s windshield. “I missed you, Teal.”

I smile, regret eating away at me. “Me too. I’ll see you in a bit, and I am sorry.”

She winks at me. “I know. It’s going to be okay this time.”

“You think so?” After crashing in the swamp, I have serious doubts.

She gives me a sympathetic smile. “It couldn’t get any worse. Something’s changed in you, Teal, and it’s not just your Parisian fashion.”

My Louboutin sandals are destroyed, and the skirt and top I bought at Beau Travail are a horrid shade of mold. “Thanks. I hope you’re right.” So far, it doesn’t feel that way.

I should start with helping Dare, right after Lulu, and then work on me with yet another new therapist, except I’ll screen each one myself.

I plod up the steps and take out the key for the two-story, wood-sided house. A wide porch wraps around the house, and it sits up on stilts with an enclosed garage below. Mom picked out the chocolate brown painted on the outside of our home. It’s a weird thing for me to remember about her when every other memory of her is buried.

I open the door and call out, “Lulu, I’m in.” I step into the foyer then down the hall past the formal living room that holds the pool table—my dad’s passion besides being a lawyer. He taught me a lot about the game, and it brings a smile to my face. He spent hours teaching me combo shots and how to break.

“Lulu?” When she doesn’t answer, dread shoots up my limbs. Could she have fallen? I rush into the great room and the adjoining kitchen overlooking the pool and the ocean. The waves curl and crash onto the sand then recede in a foamy wash.

In my hurry, I almost knock over one of Mom’s vases. I right the vase on its stand. When she’d studied in Paris, she’d blown and colored the glass with splashes of orange, reds, and gold to resemble the sun setting on and rising off the Outer Banks where she’d grown up.

Her glass vases, abstract paintings, and drawings consume the walls and bureaus in our house, except my room. That’s off limits. I never understood or appreciated the landscapes comprised of geometric shapes. I loathe them.

Lulu sits in front of the flat screen where a couple goes at it, not hard-core porn style, but more like daytime soap, which is pretty dang close.

“Lulu, why didn’t you answer me?” Maybe her hearing’s going too.

She’s aged since the last time I saw her. I don’t recall the brown spots clumping together so that she almost has a tan. Her hands remind me of cypress knees, bony knots of wood, and she’s a little hunched over. Her pantsuit hangs on her shrunken frame.

Eye surgery helped her short term, but then the cataracts came right back in one of her eyes.

She puts a finger to her lips. “Shhh, it’s the best part.”

“I thought your eyesight was going?” Dad hired a nurse to check on her twice a day until I got home. She doesn’t look like she’s starving. A half-eaten turkey sandwich lies on a plate by a glass of sherry.

She tucks back strands of grey hair. “My hearing’s plenty good, and I can still see pretty well out of one eye.”

She points at the TV. “They’re having fun, aren’t they? I sure do miss my honeypot.”

My cheeks flame. I haven’t forgotten how open she is. “I guess so.” How would I know anything about sex?

She waves at me. “Come over here, so I can give you a hug.”

The stench of dead swamp seeps into my nose. I’m surprised Kami let me ride in the Benz. “I should clean up first.”

“Nonsense. Give me some sugar.”

I round the sofa sectional. She stands and sniffs me. “What you’ve been in, sugar?”

“I had an accident. The car is in a swamp ditch.” I hope she doesn’t call Daddy.

She touches my cast. “Sweetie, how you feel?”

Like crap. “I just want to take a shower. Get the swamp juice off me.”

“Don’t mind me. I can entertain myself. Your steamer trunks came from Paris and are in your room.” She pats my hand. “Now that you’re here, I do like to go out for walks on the beach just before the sun sets.”

“We’ll do that.” She doesn’t need round-the-clock care yet, and it’s good to see. She was very independent before I left. From our previous conversations, I know she hates to give that up.

She shoos me away. “Now go clean up.”

I trot to my bedroom down the hall. It has a great view of the ocean, so I open a window to let the breeze flow in.

I’d left my photos of Mama on my nightstand, taking none to Paris. I didn’t want her staring back at me. Daddy has far more pictures of her than I do. I study her building a sandcastle on the beach with me, then I look in the mirror. I didn’t look like her when I was little, but I do now. In Paris, the ash blonde grew out and was replaced with waves of copper. My mother wasn’t just beautiful. She was stunning. Why don’t I remember that?

After wrapping my cast in plastic, I scrub off the swamp from me in the shower and soak my clothes in the laundry room tub. I find my one piece and stare at it in the mirror. I’ve only worn it to the French Riviera. The bathing suit covers me, so Kami will harass me about it. I was twelve the first time I wore a two-piece. I felt naked in it, so I ran back inside and put on my boy shorts and tank top. It was just one more thing that made me stand out. I don’t like boys seeing my body, and I don’t know why. The French boys thought I was cute, even sophisticated.

Dare enters my mind again. The cops shouldn’t have picked him up, so I should call. What should I say? I don’t know where to start other than to apologize to him—for what I don’t know.

After I check on Lulu again, I walk into the library to find a paperback for the beach. My Kindle and laptop are in my carryon, so they’re history. Insurance better cover them.

Law books fill most of the shelves, but Dad told me the novels are mainly hers. Why didn’t she take any of them with her?

Dust covers the books, even though Dad hired a cleaning lady. I peruse the shelves, searching for something literary. I’ve had a tablet so long I rarely come in here.

On one of the higher shelves, she stacked her herbal, astrology, and art books. Beside those are books on tantric yoga and several romance novels. I don’t bother with the yoga because that sounds dull, so I grab the leather-bound one because it’s in French.

The Story of O
. I wonder what that’s about? I don’t recall Mom reading the trashy novels with half-naked men beside the old book. Maybe they were Lulu’s at one time. That wouldn’t surprise me.

Just glancing over them, my cheeks catch fire. When Henri took off my clothes, I made him turn off the lights. When I asked the doctors, they told me I had body image issues or maybe I feared being sexually exploited. I don’t believe either is my issue.

The leather on the book is worn down so that it’s smooth to the touch. I shove it into my beach bag along with a towel and an apple I took from the fridge.

“Do you need anything, Lulu?”

She glances up from the TV. “Oh, I have a joke for you.”

I half consider pulling my lobes over my ears. “Okay.”

“What’s the difference between an ‘ew’ and an ‘ah?’”

I shrug, half humoring her, half not wanting to hear.

“About six inches.” She lets out a loud laugh.

I cringe, noticing Mama’s vase at the edge of my vision. Where is she? Dad and I never saw her in Paris where he said she had gone.

Lulu and I have barely spoken about her, and it’s probably because no one wished to upset me. No one ever talked to me about Dare either, even Kami.

“Lulu?” Nervousness tingles my fingertips. If I want to get better…

“Yes, sugar.”

“Why did she leave?” I ask the other question that has always bothered me. Until Paris, I always fretted bringing her up would disturb my fragile psyche. “Where are the rest of your children?” I don’t really know my aunt and uncle, and I know even less about Mama, though I should know a great deal about her.

She stares down into a glass of iced tea parked by the couch. “I think she had to. She wanted to stay with you.” Lulu peers up at me, cataracts whitening one of her eyes. Her hand clasps mine. “She loves you very much, Teal. Don’t you worry about that.”

But do I love her? A tear swims in my eye, seeking escape. “Then why didn’t she stay?”

Her gaze lands on the picture window overlooking the sea. She closes her eyes and breathes in the ocean breeze. “They were all wild. All my children. Lyle, he’s up in New York bartending.”

I’ve only met Mama’s older siblings a couple times, Lyle and Lilly. Her son calls rarely and flits between Miami and Manhattan to work the tourist seasons. Lilly never calls unless she wants money.

“Lilly.” Lulu sighs heavily. “She’s more of a free-spirit than your mom. Always restless, could never sit still. No telling where she ran off to.

“All of them are gifted.” She sighs. “They must’ve gotten that from me.” She winks both eyes. “Your mother can sculpt and paint, Lyle can too, and Lilly dreamt of being a painter in Paris. They all fought, gave my first husband and me a helluva time. Lynn and Lilly were the worst though—boys, clothing, shoes—always scrapping over every little thing. Lyle had to pull them apart once. They would’ve clawed each other’s eyes out.”

When my stomach tightens, my hand flies up to rub the tension loose.

“You should run along with your friend Kami. Sweet girl. Since I’ve moved back in, she’s checked on me a couple times a day and asks about you often.”

She helped Lulu, causing the guilt to take another chunk out of me. “Just holler if you need me, I’ll be out back on the beach.”

Lulu waves at me, returning her gaze to the couple in an amorous embrace. “You go have fun.”

Outside, the lawn chairs are stacked against the pool house, so I pick one up and sling the strap over one shoulder.

Past the dunes and beach grasses, Kami lazes in a chair under an umbrella, a John Green trade paperback splayed beside her. I plop my chair beside hers.

She yawns, pulls up her shades, and rolls onto her side. “Unh unh. There is no way I will hang out with you in that.” A black and gold bikini hugs her breasts and slender hips. The Brazilian cut rides up and shows a lot of her butt.

I twirl in front of her, waving my gaudy cast. “What do you mean? This is a designer suit from Paris.” And I’m comfortable in it because it doesn’t show much.

“Disgraceful. It’s inconceivable,” she says in her best imitation of
The Princess Bride
we watched a million times.

I give her a hearty laugh. “We’ll go shopping after I catch some rays.” The thought of wearing a two-piece burns my cheeks, but it will help if I’m not so different. I hated my nickname of Blackout Betty.

“Your stomach will be all white. Do you want to be a white girl for the rest of your life?”

“I sort of can’t help it. We can’t all be born with café au lait skin.”

She tilts her chin and bats her lashes. “You’ve always been jealous of my choco coloring.”

“You know I am,” I say, batting her belly with my beach towel. All the guys look at her as if she’s some exotic tigress. The gold choker chain circling her neck glistens against her perfect skin.

I relax in my chair and close my eyes. “My arm is going to be really white and all prune-like as soon as they remove the cast. I won’t be able to tan that.”

I hesitate to tell her what’s been bugging me, though I’ve pushed back on thinking about my accident. “Tate arrested Dare.”

Kami bolts upright. “What for? Are you sure you want to talk about him?”

I nod. Before Paris, I wouldn’t let her discuss the Tuckers to me. I didn’t want to trigger a blackout. If I hope to recover, I need to face Dare and whatever he remembers. I hope I can do that.

“I think because of the restraining order,” I say. “He saved me from being eaten alive by the swamp.” I should make some calls, but from the way he looked at me with pure loathing, I should avoid him like Daddy expects me to. If he found out I had contact with Dare, Daddy would be angry.

“That order ended two years ago. He had a huge party out at his place across the river. Everyone was there.”

Except me. “My dad’s renewing it. He filed the petition a month or two ago.”

“Don’t the cops have to serve him or have a hearing or something?”

“Yes.” The order may not have gone through yet, and Dare has to receive it before the cops can act on it. I didn’t think of that earlier. “Can I use your phone?”

I search for the sheriff’s department then call them. “Hi, this is Teal Covington. Did you release Darius Tucker?”

“Yeah, the sheriff didn’t hold him. Just wanted to give him a good talkin’ to for your daddy and your sake until the restraining order goes through.”

So it hasn’t. “Thanks.” I hang up, wondering why Tate had to speak with Dare. I chew on the inside of my cheek. Dare has changed. His unshaven jaw, the skin darkened by the sun, and the tattoos make him look rough. He’s more like his older brothers now, especially Sam—the Tucker I took a shine to.